Lisbon court places US fugitive under house arrest

LISBON, Portugal (AP) — A court has allowed captured American fugitive George Wright to leave jail and stay at his Portuguese home while he fights extradition to the U.S., his lawyer said Friday.

A judge hearing the case released Wright from custody on condition he stays at his home near Lisbon and wears an electronic tag that monitors his movements, lawyer Manuel Luis Ferreira said.

Wright spent seven years in prison before escaping in 1970, and was on the run for 41 years until his arrest in Portugal almost three weeks ago. Wright had been held in a Lisbon jail since he was caught.

“He can’t leave the house and he can’t speak about the case to anyone,” Ferreira told The Associated Press.

Under Portuguese law, court proceedings and police investigations are confidential.

The U.S. is trying to extradite Wright to serve the rest of his 15- to 30-year sentence for a 1962 murder in New Jersey.

Portuguese broadcaster S.I.C. showed Wright arriving at his home, in a hamlet near a stunning beach about 40 kilometers (25 miles) from Lisbon, Portugal’s capital, on Friday evening.

Wright, his head shaved and wearing glasses, was escorted into the house by two police officers. He kissed his Portuguese wife, Maria do Rosario Valente, who was waiting at the front door before going inside.

Ferreira contends that Wright is now a Portuguese citizen and should be allowed to serve the remainder of his sentence in Portugal, where his wife and two grown children live.

The judge overseeing the case may call witnesses before announcing his decision in coming weeks. That decision can be appealed to higher courts, and the entire process could take months or longer.

Wright got Portuguese citizenship through marriage in 1991 after Guinea-Bissau, a former Portuguese colony in West Africa, gave him the new name of “Jose Luis Jorge dos Santos” and made him a citizen.

The identity from Guinea-Bissau was granted after the country gave Wright political asylum in the 1980s, and that was accepted by Portugal, according to the lawyer.

Wright broke out of Bayside State Prison in Leesburg, New Jersey, on Aug. 19, 1970. He was also part of a Black Liberation Army group that hijacked a U.S. plane to Algeria in 1972, the FBI says.

No one answered the phone Friday afternoon at the Howell, New Jersey, home of Anne Patterson, daughter of Walter Patterson, who was shot and killed by Wright and an associate in 1962.